CTMA
is conducting an update to its industry-wide customer
experience baseline study of consent and inspection services.
Running throughout the year, from July 2022 to June 2023, the study
cuts through the “customer satisfaction” rhetoric to help councils
identify sources of dissatisfaction, reduce risk, and set priorities
for service quality improvement.
Background, risks and rewards
When customers experience problems with their consent
applications or with building code compliance, it can increase processing costs for councils and be a
drain on their resources, cause project delays and increase
compliance costs for customers, and in extreme cases it can lead
to a negative impact a region’s housing availability and on the local
economy by influencing developers to make future investments
elsewhere instead. We've even seen cases where
developers have vowed to avoid future projects in areas where they’ve
had difficulty working with a local council.
Councils work hard to meet a range of KPIs
with their consents and inspection services, but typically only
get to review
their performance from their customers’ perspective, as part of
an annual residents survey.
But for many, although the annual residents survey provides a customer satisfaction
score, the significant shortfall is that they often:
- Fail to express performance in terms of strategic
council outcome objectives
- Fail to identify specific actions needed to improve
customer experiences, and…
- Fail to set the priorities that would provide the best
return on service improvement investment
This often results in somewhat subjective KPIs and
targets, and an improvement strategy driven by a sometimes vague and
unrewarding directive to “try harder next year!”
Three things this study provides that councils are looking for:
In contrast, CTMA’s customer experience studies provide
in-depth, council-specific insights into what specific actions
need to be taken to have the biggest impact on reducing council
risks, reducing problems for customers, and improving customer satisfaction.
The consents and inspections study identifies:
- The potential impact of the council's current
customer experiences
- Strategic priorities to reduce those risks
- Specific sources of customer dissatisfaction, prioritised by
their potential impact on public outcomes
Councils taking part in the
CTMA
studies over a four year period achieved an average improvement in customer satisfaction
of 23 index points, compared to survey responses from customers
of non-participating councils that only showed an average improvement
of 4 index points. Over this same period,
participating councils showed an average reduction in
customers experiencing problems of 33 percentage points.
Actionable insights and improvements achieved
The CTMA studies deliver much more than a simple customer satisfaction
score and performance index. They are designed to provide
each participating council with
specific and actionable findings
in its own confidential council-specific reports.
Running throughout the year, from July 2022 to June 2023, the
study provides each participating council with an in-depth,
council-specific, end-of-study report for each of these three
key services (resource consents, building consents and building
inspection services). In addition, where sufficient
responses will allow, interim quarterly updates will be produced
to summarise high-level trends and to
help monitor and manage ongoing performance.

Why?
Local councils are emerging from an old paradigm of an
“annual residents’ survey”, towards the need for a more
cost-effective and actionable approach to measuring and
managing service quality. Already working hard to meet
a range of KPIs with consent and inspection services,
councils need more structured and comprehensive feedback
from customers to help set priorities for improvement.
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What?
The consent and inspection studies provide
actionable
council-specific reports that quantify
customer satisfaction, identify specific sources of
dissatisfaction that can have the biggest impact on council
support and customer
success, and assess the council’s
effectiveness dealing with customer complaints and concerns.
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How?The study involves five simple steps leading
from
measurement to
management action.
Using a combination of online
and (optional) mail-based surveys, the
study provides confidential, council-specific insights to help
the regulatory team identify and prioritise what needs to be done to improve service
quality.
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Now!
If you are looking for more actionable customer
feedback to
help
improve service and
drive council and customer success, just click here to
access the online registration form and register your council now.

Let’s talk
If you'd like to arrange a more detailed discussion
about the study prior to registration, please contact us to
schedule a call:

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With a participation fee of only
$6,870 (+GST) for each of
the three studies...
- Resource Consents
- Building Consents
- Building Inspection Services
...this is a unique and cost-effective opportunity to
establish a council-specific baseline of customer satisfaction
and identify your customer-driven improvement priorities.
(For clarity, this represents a discount of
approximately 90% of the fee normally charged to an individual
commercial organisation for this type of study).
The industry-wide nature of this study also helps to establish
a national baseline of customer satisfaction in the sector and
provide participating councils with an independent measure of
their relative position compared to other
(unnamed)
councils. |
How the study works
During a 12 month period, the study asks customers about the
service they have received from their local council in the
processing of resource consents, building consents, and the provision
of building inspection services.
It’s conducted using a combination of online and
(optional) mail-based surveys, and produces confidential
council-specific reports for each participating council.
Registration and design phase
During this initial period, councils register as participants
in the study and the design of the survey is finalised.
CTMA works closely with industry bodies and participating
councils on the design of the study to ensure its focus
maintains council and customer relevance.
The study then involves five simple steps leading from
measurement to management action:
Measurement: Between July
2022 - June 2023
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Analysis: June/July
2023
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Action: July 2023
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Step1
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Step 2
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Step 3
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Step 4
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Step 5
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Councils invite their
customers to take part in the study
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Customers respond via
CTMA’s customer feedback website (or by mail)
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CTMA collects and
processes online and mail-based responses
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CTMA analyses the
responses and reports on the study findings
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CTMA conducts council
briefings helping to identify improvement opportunities
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Invitations to customers
Participating councils
invite their customers to take part in the study by sending them an email or a letter, explaining
the objectives of the study.
Letters and emails include an Internet
link to the on-line questionnaires.
This is done on an
ongoing basis throughout the year - a week or two after
each consent is granted and after issuing each code
compliance certificate.
By inviting their own qualifying customers from their internal records,
councils are able to ensure that a significant number of
customers is contacted whilst also preserving their
customers’ individual privacy.
For councils wishing to provide customers with a
printed version of the questionnaire for mail-based
response, CTMA will produce a council-branded version of
the questionnaire (in .pdf format) to be printed and
mailed to customers by the council. This should
include a FreePost envelope addressed to CTMA for
customers to mail back their responses.
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Customers provide feedback
Customers submit their feedback about the service
they have received from the council.
The online questionnaires are hosted on CTMA’s
customer feedback website.
Mail-based responses are returned directly to CTMA
for codification and data capture.
Responses are completely confidential and customers
are not asked for any personally identifiable
information.
A “per-response” fee of $7.00 (+GST) for each
questionnaire returned by mail will be charged to
councils that wish to use this facility. (This fee
covers FreePost costs and data
processing).
There are no response fees charged for online
customer responses.
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Response processing
CTMA collects online and mail-based responses from
customers throughout the survey period. Mail-based
responses are codified and entered into CTMA’s analytics
software and customer comments are transcribed.
Online and mail-based responses are combined in
preparation for data analysis and reporting.
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Analysis and reporting
End of study reports
Upon completion of the survey period, CTMA analyses
customer responses and reports on the findings
separately for each participating council in
confidential “council-specific” reports. These
reports will be produced in June/July 2023.
Bonus interim reports
Bonus quarterly interim reports will be produced
where sufficient customer responses have been received
during the previous quarter. These brief reports
will summarise high-level trends at the council-specific
level and help councils monitor and manage ongoing performance.
Quarterly reports will be produced in October 2022,
January and April 2023.
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Briefings and support
Following the study, CTMA will provide a management
briefing to each participating council to help them interpret
the study findings and plan remedial actions.
In addition, CTMA can provide further consultative assistance and
report briefings if required.
(Fees and costs
associated with these services will be agreed on an
individual basis).
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Content of the end of study reports:
Each participating council receives individual,
confidential “council-specific” reports of
the study findings in the form of a password protected,
printable .pdf file. (There is a separate
report for each of the three studies).
In a graphical and tabular format, the reports
present relative strengths and improvement
opportunities at the individual council and examine
four perspectives of service performance:
- Overall customer
satisfaction
with the service and the impact satisfaction has on strategic council
outcomes such as customer support and advocacy.
- Problems experienced by
customers, identifying specific areas of
poor performance and sources of customer
dissatisfaction. This section also helps to
identify and prioritise customer concerns in
terms of their impact on support and advocacy.
- Customer contact
behaviour
(when things go wrong), identifying key aspects
of customer complaint and word-of-mouth
behaviour.
- Response effectiveness,
providing a measure of the council’s
effectiveness responding to customers when they
experience a problem or concern.
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Please note: Council-specific
reports are confidential and only made available to the
participating council and only to those that have actively and
effectively encouraged their customers to take part in the
study. Council-specific findings from one council are not
shared with anyone else.
How your council can take part
If
you are looking for more actionable customer feedback to help
reduce costs and drive service improvement, simply register here using the online
registration form and we’ll call to discuss the project in more
detail:
If you would like to arrange a more detailed discussion
about the study prior to registration, please contact us to
schedule a call:
About CTMA New Zealand Ltd
CTMA is a customer experience and service quality improvement
firm with twenty years experience providing advisory and measurement
services to help public and private sector organisations improve
service to customers. In addition to its consulting, training,
coaching and
measurement work with individual
clients, CTMA conducts similar industry-wide customer experience
baseline studies in sectors such as
retail banking, telecommunications, and electricity and gas supply
companies.